The official blog of Dawud Walid, a leading voice for Muslims & Islam in Michigan. Disclaimer: Views and articles posted on this website are those of their authors and do not necessarily represent the views of CAIR or blog owner. Contact at d.walid.speaks@gmail.com for comments, questions, media inquires or booking for speaking engagements.

County Medical Examiner’s Office should send their photos out to Target or CVS. When the Council on American-Islamic Relations/Michigan submitted a freedom-of-information request for the autopsy photos of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the head of a Detroit mosque shot to death by federal agents on Oct. 28, the county told CAIR, in a Nov. 24 letter, the 75 photos would cost $1,500. That’s $20 a piece. Smells like suppression to me.

CAIR has called for an independent investigation of the shooting, as I did earlier, raising questions about how Abdullah died and events leading up to the shooting. Federal agents were going to arrest Abdullah on suspicions that he dealt with stolen goods. Without presuming anything, Mayor Dave Bing also told me recently he supported such an investigation. But that’s not the issue here. At issue is the duty of a government agency to provide public information to taxpayers at a reasonable cost.

Governments, of course, can recoup their costs for reprinting documents, paper, photos, etc. But $20 for each photo seems out-of-line when CVS or Target charges about 25 cents. Officials could fear that photos of Abdullah’s bullet-ridden corpse would end up on the internet or in mosques. If a government agency believes it has a legit reason for denying a FOIA request, it should straight-up deny it, and then make its case to a judge for doing so. But don’t back-door it. Making documents unaffordable is the wrong way for government to withhold information.

The Muslim community has asked for an independent investigation into the death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah (the imam killed in an FBI raid) last month. Do you support that?

I think an independent investigation is warranted. A couple of my former employees were part of that mosque. I’ve known them for a long time and they’re good, solid people. I don’t know all the details, but I don’t think we can just sweep it under the carpet.

DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) – At Tuhama’s Lebanese deli in Dearborn, and at bakeries and barbershops throughout town, it’s no secret the CIA is looking for a few good spies.

“There is a lot of talk, and nobody likes it,” said Hamze Chehade, a 48-year-old Lebanese-American, taking a bite of his chicken shawarma.

In dire need of agents fluent in Arabic, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has made an unusual public show of its recruiting effort in Dearborn — a city of 100,000 with the densest Arab population in the United States.

The agency has bought full-page ads in Arabic-language newspapers and it is rolling out TV ads aimed at luring Arab-Americans and Iranian-Americans to spycraft.

But despite a weak economy and high unemployment, the CIA will find it hard to hire here, residents say. Many see U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East as misguided and anger over the perceived mistreatment of Arab-Americans runs deep.

It won’t be easy to win hearts and minds here, they say.

“If anyone goes, they would be just going for the money, not following the heart,” said Chehade, a cabinet-maker who immigrated from Lebanon 21 years ago.

CIA recruiters said the agency sorely needs speakers of Arabic and other languages due to the intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan and the continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq.

“Obviously, with the wars going on in the Middle East, that’s really on America’s radar,” said Henry Medina, who is in charge of CIA recruiting in the Midwest.

“We’re going to recruit that knowledge, that language, the linguistics, the cultural nuances that are critical to fully understand the foes and enemies,” said Medina during a briefing for reporters who were shown the agency’s new ads.

One TV spot showed a dinner party at an Arab-American home, with a narrator intoning, “Your nation, your world. They’re worth protecting. Careers in the CIA.” The camera zooms out to show the party taking place in a modern high-rise building, then a view of the United States from outer space.

A second spot introduces five Arab-American professionals in turn — an engineer, a scientist, an economist, a lawyer, and an academic — then shows them together announcing, “We work for the CIA.”

“We’re trying to de-mystify the agency. We don’t want people to only see us as being something like what you see in the movies or spy novels,” said CIA recruiter Zahra Roberts.

“DOES AMERICA LOVE US?”

The CIA declined to disclose the cost of the ad campaign or detail the number of Arab-American recruits it wants to hire.

Leaders in Dearborn’s Arab community said they welcomed efforts to make U.S. intelligence agencies more inclusive.

But they said people have grown wary of the government’s use of wiretaps and informants in the Arab-American community.

Strict enforcement of immigration laws and delays at airports and border crossings for Arab-Americans have also created a backlash, they said.

“People have been told, ‘Your name is Mohammed; your name is Ahmed; you must be a terrorist,” said Osama Siblani, Lebanese-born publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News. “How do you bring people into the government when they have been subjected to a great deal of discrimination?”

He added: “You have to believe that what you are doing is the right thing, otherwise you are just a gun for hire.”

Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, agreed that many Arab-Americans were torn between feelings of patriotism and resentment of U.S. government policy at home and abroad.

“I think transparency will do a lot more than airing TV commercials. There’s a large amount of fear and mistrust with the government,” Walid said.

People of Middle Eastern origin make up more than one-third of Dearborn’s 100,000 residents, an influx that began a hundred years ago when Henry Ford hired Lebanese immigrants to work in the nearby River Rouge plant. More recently, many Iraqi refugees have also settled in Dearborn.

On Warren Avenue, where signs in Arabic outnumber those in English, other residents said they doubted the CIA would find many willing recruits in Dearborn.

“It’s not lack of patriotism. It’s questioning of wrong policy,” said Mohammed, a 24-year-old graduate student of Libyan descent who asked not to use his last name.

Inside Tuhama’s, Chehade said he would warn his adult sons to consider the consequences of signing on with the CIA.

While we’re all eating Turkey today and watching the football games (I’m sure the Detroit Lions will get smoked), let’s remember the true importance of today, which is an American national vacation day.

Today is truly a holiday (holy-day) in the sense that it is the 9th day of Dhul-Hijjah, the Day of `Arafat, in which Prophet Muhammad (SAAS) said it is the best day of supplication. Some commentators say that this day i symbolic of when Adam (AS) recognized (`a – ra – fa) Eve (AS) after their separation in paradise. The first pilgrimage was in fact the pilgrimage of Adam (AS).

The Day of `Arafat is the day of recognizing our human worth (masculine and feminine characteristics) and the recognition of the equality of the human soul under G’d.

Which brings me to this day being a day of mourning for Native Americans. As we Americans overeat and enjoy our families, most of us will get lost in the national myth of Thanksgiving.

The fact of the matter is that the settlers who were welcomed with hospitality by the Natives shortly after arrival committed genocide and ethnic cleansing on the original inhabitants.

The first “Day of Thanksgiving” declared by the MA Bay Colony governor was a celebration of the slaughter of 700 men, women, and children of the Pequot tribe in 1637 during their annual Green Corn Festival. This initial massacre led the way for hundreds of massacres to come, Natives being subjugated (even made to be slaves for a period of time), and bamboozled through broken treaties primarily signed by Uncle Tom Natives who didn’t truly represent their people.

During this day of supplication, pray for the repair of the Native Americans and that we can tell history how it really is instead of re-telling myths.

Please help the Muslim community find a man calling himself Jabril

On October 28, 2009, the FBI raided a warehouse in Dearborn, Michigan. In the process of their operation, a man known as Imam Luqman Abullah was killed. He was shot no less than 18 times, maybe even more. He was handcuffed and left to die without medical attention.

There is much still unknown to this story. The FBI has been contacted by a group of civil rights organizations, and asked to answer some questions to clear up inconsistencies, bring relief and to restore the community’s confidence in its institutions. Until now, this request has not been fulfilled.

There is another way in which the community may be able to help itself. If everyone could keep an open-eye for this missing man photographed in these pictures. It is believed by those who were closest to Imam Luqman Abdullah that this picture depicts a man who called himself “Jabril.”

Jabril was supposedly a businessman who employed men trying to re-enter society from prison for one-time jobs. He did this for approximately two years, community members said. He became a trusted “friend” of the Imam’s for helping employ men who very much needed the work to stay out of unhealthy situations and prevent them from returning to a life that would ruin all the progress they have made. Men who come out of prison often have great difficulty finding work upon re-entry. It is alleged that this man on October 28, 2009, asked people to join him in moving some items from a warehouse. And because of his long-standing relationship with these men, they were brotherly in obliging him. Subsequently, when they arrived at the warehouse, they moved taped boxes of things they had no knowledge of the contents inside. They were after all helping a man who claimed to be their brother and a businessman, and who had in the past always seemed to be what he claimed to be. After finishing their task, of what they believed to be helping a brother move some stuff, they were placed under arrest. With one exception, all there that day were arrested. Imam Luqman Abdullah was killed.

The man in the photograph said his name was Jabril. He is a Caucasian American. He disappeared after the raid, and no one has been able to find or locate him. It is believed that this man has valuable information and insight that could alleviate the sorrow and wonderment of an entire community. He may have changed his looks, shaved his beard and dyed his hair. He may be assuming another identity. He was believed to be one of the last people to see and speak to Imam Luqman Abdullah before his demise. For the community to be able to speak with him would offer an opportunity for further insight and closure to the death of a beloved man of his community. Short of the FBI answering the request to provide further information, this is another way in which all our brothers and sisters, non-Muslim and Muslim alike can work together to bring the community to a better place.

If you have any information on this man’s whereabouts, please send an e-mail to this Examiner to forward. Together as a community we can work together to bring closure and relief to a neighborhood of concerned citizens in Detroit. Together as an interfaith community we can work together for a common good. Please distribute broadly, so that all may have an opportunity to gain insight into an incomplete understanding of circumstances.

Muslims who observe the Hajj are part of medical study

Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News

Dearborn — Hundreds of Metro Detroiters are among an estimated 2.5 million Muslims in Mecca this week observing the Hajj, which officially begins today.

This year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) are conducting a study that looks at the health impact of the annual event on Hajj pilgrims since the outbreak of the H1N1 pandemic.

Four pilgrims to Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad in Saudi Arabia, have died of the H1N1 flu virus.

Some 200 participants in the study were interviewed before they left for Mecca last week and will be interviewed upon return.

“The outcome of the feedback is going to be helpful to new (health and scientific) techniques to prevent infectious disease, said Dr. Adnan Hammad, senior director of the Community Health & Research Center for ACCESS.

The study will help doctors and epidemiologists track how illnesses and viruses spread, Hammad said.

The Hajj pilgrimage is among Muslim religious duties described in the Five Pillars of Islam.

During the Hajj, Muslims take part in the “tawaf,” which involves circling the cube-shaped Kaaba building seven times.

The annual religious observance brings Muslims in close contact as they begin the six-day observance with the “tawaf” in the center of the Grand Mosque.

Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Michigan (CAIR), said the issue of remaining in good health during the lengthy pilgrimage to Mecca is a concern for family members and friends.

Community organizations like CAIR have encouraged pilgrims to take caution.

“I tell people to make sure they take hand sanitizers and to make sure they clean their hands continuously,” Walid said.

“It’s extremely hard not to become ill while making the pilgrimage,” Walid added.

“You have 2 (million to) 3 million people there with different hygiene practices and bacteria that are foreign to Americans. It’s virtually impossible not to come into contact with some sort of illness or virus.”

On Friday, Muslims will observe Eid Al-Adha, a holiday to mark the end of the Hajj.